


Tarnish and Sin

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Final Fantasy X
Genre: Bodyguard, Complicated Relationships, Devotion, Duty, Final Fantasy X AU, Grief/Mourning, Intimacy, M/M, Magic, Pilgrimage, Politics, References to Depression, Sad with a Happy Ending, Self-Sacrifice, Spira, Summoner AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-27 18:29:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18744664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: You don't need to have played Final Fantasy X to read this!Vetinari pledges himself as guardian to the Summoner Drumknott, and accompanies him on his pilgrimage. It gives him - and Drumknott, too - direction he had long-since been searching for.“I may not finish my pilgrimage either,” Drumknott said quietly.“You want to?”“Of course.”“You wish to sacrifice yourself, merely to give the world a scant few month of peace? Peace that won’t last, that will shatter and melt away like frost on grass?"“I can’t think of a better thing to die for.”“Have you considered not dying at all?”“Not for a moment.”





	1. Part I

“Oh, Havelock,” Aunt Roberta said, and Havelock shifted in his bed, leaning forward and inhaling slowly. His skin was flush, and he was soaked in a thin layer of cold sweat: despite the look of his skin, blushing all over with red, red blood, he was freezing cold, and he was trembling beneath his bedsheets. He stared, uncomprehending, at his own hand, which was beset by a tremor he couldn’t quite stifle.

He was nine years old, he thought, powerlessly. He should be more controlled than this.

“I’m sorry,” he said, aware of the quaver in his own voice but unable to iron it out. “Did I wake you?”

“You were screaming,” Bobbi said quietly. She was seated on the edge of his bed, and Havelock swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, and she sighed.

Bobbi’s hand touched the side of his face, her palm warm and dry ( _and yet not like Papà’s had been, not at all, because his had been pockmarked and stained from alchemical experiments, and hers is so, so soft, too soft—)_ where it cupped his cheek. Havelock leaned into it, reaching up to cup the back of her hand, and swallowed thickly.

Her thumb gently touched under his eye, and Havelock was aware, with a sort of quiet, grim understanding, that there were tearstains there.

He inhaled, very slowly, and thought of his father as he’d seen him, thrown hard on the sands of the Boleri beach, his swirling green eyes staring and unseeing, his body bent at an unnatural angle. The spine, broken about two thirds of the way down, and Havelock had stood for the longest time, just staring down at him, trying to keep from screaming by cataloguing the anatomical injuries, how best they might be healed – were it not that healing was beyond possible.

Aunt Roberta had come all the way out from Luca, had been there within _days_ , as soon as the message reached her, and it had been her that had performed the Sending… Havelock had never seen such a thing before. Oh, he’d met Summoners, yes, Summoners who were making their way on from Boleri to the divine temple at Kilika, and he’d even known them to do Sendings for individual people, but this—

He remembered it in flashes. It had felt like a high wind, at first, and he had paid it no heed, thinking it just another storm. He had been in the school room, further inland, with the others, listening to some lesson about— He could no longer remember. The contents of the classroom was a blank space upon his memory, but he remembered looking at his glass of water, and seeing the way that the water was shifting in it. It had taken on a gelatinous quality, slowly rising into the air, and he had felt the chill in his blood.

“Sin,” he had said sharply, and everyone had turned, had looked at his glass, and been frozen—

Not him.

He’d run.

His father’s alchemical laboratory had been out on the beach, so that it couldn’t catch in the rest of the village – and people liked to complain, they did, about having an Al Bhed so close, but he had sworn quite off machina[1], and he had been declared a Yevonite convert, anyway, marrying Havelock’s mother…

He couldn’t run fast enough.

He had seen it as he’d sprinted down the hill and out of the woods, seen the way the water swirled and collected on the air, the wind whipping about his head as he’d looked down the hill and out toward the _ocean_ , where it was waiting, where it was drawing in everything… Sin. Sin, a great, grey beast of gargantuan size, and then, _then_ he’d stopped, tears pricking at his eyes and then joining the drawn-up moisture on the air instead of streaming down his cheeks. His father’s hut had come right to pieces, down on the beach before him, but so too had the village, and Havelock had stared at the way it had all been drawn up into the swirling storm, heard the screams filtering up from the coast, the sounds of pain, and terror, and death.

There was a reason the school house was so far inland, away from the coast, away from Sin’s reach.

When any amount of people died at once, one could see the shimmering light of their souls lingering on the air, Unsent, and Havelock had stood on the beach, in the aftermath, looking down at his father dead on the sand… And those lights, those glittering balls of pure spirit, had swirled about his feet, moved confusedly about the ruins of what had once been the village of Boleri. Pyreflies, they were called. They weren’t alive, his father had once told him: they were merely the spirits of what was once life, confused and wandering, unable to comprehend their own existence. Some of them, full to the brim with feeling, bitter and angry at their state, would form into fiends, the Yevonite name for the monsters that roamed the lands of Spira, besetting upon travellers. Others would merely spin about in perpetuity, going on, going on, as formless ghosts…

Only the Sending would allow them to ascend into the Farplane. The Farplane was where the dead went, to be at peace, to be finally at rest. Havelock had asked about that, once, too.

_“Why do we call it the Farplane, Papà? Is it truly so far?”_

_“No, my darling, and yet, yes. It is oh-so-close to us, and yet, it is eternities away.”_

The Sending…

Havelock had watched his aunt perform it. Her staff in hand, she had walked upon barefoot and graceful upon the water of the bay, and the pyreflies, confused souls, knowing not what they were or where they were going, followed her in her dance. It had been beautiful, in a poetic way: in every other sense, it had been dreadful, and it had made Havelock feel full to the brim with nausea, seeing his aunt lead the pyreflies in her slow, rhythmic steps, until they had begun to disappear.

Delicately, shimmering brighter until there was nothing there at all, the pyreflies had departed, for the Farplane, and somehow, it had brought him no peace at all.

“Havelock,” Bobbi said, and he turned to look at her, feeling her hands cup the sides of his cheek on both sides. She didn’t have green eyes, not like his father – one green eye, one brown. Al Bhed had green eyes, the colour of them bright and shining, although not everyone knew that[2]. They had been half-siblings.

“What does it feel like?” Havelock asked quietly. “To do the Sending?”

“It’s magick,” Bobbi murmured. “It feels… airy. Strange. That many pyreflies, so close to you, you feel their weight upon the air, the weight of their _spirit_ , collected altogether. You feel the ghost of their feeling: fear, grief, confusion, anger, desperation. In the Sending, you give those spirits… guidance. You call them to your breast, give them comfort. They are blinded by the depth of their feeling, and they cannot see their way. We Summoners give them enough calm, that they might find their direction.”

“And—” Havelock felt himself stop. Stutter.

His father was dead, killed by Sin. His mother had died six years ago: she, too, had been killed by Sin. His village had been destroyed, and how many others, the world over? How many others had been wrought to pieces by that monstrous thing?

The teachings of Yevon declared that it was a punishment for mankind’s folly, for going against the teachings of Yu Yevon: Sin, the Yevonite Maesters said, was a beast made up of mankind’s capacity for idolatry and indolence. A secondary concern, they said, was mankind’s capacity for cruelty. This weighting of priorities had always rankled with Havelock.

How could a beast such as that, killing so many thousands, hundreds of thousands, _millions_ , indiscriminately and with no thought but bestial violence, be a punishment? The Yevonites claimed Sin was created that they might atone for the sins of the peoples that had lived one thousand years ago… And yet, how might they atone for the sins of a people long dead? Why should they?

How could anyone atone for anything, once they were dead?

“And,” Havelock said softly, “the point of a Summoner, too, is to defeat Sin. Yes?”

“Yes,” Bobbi said. She was looking at him very seriously, and then she leaned in, touching their foreheads together. Havelock did not sob: he was a serious child, tended toward blankness in unfamiliar situations, and even so young as he was, he did not like the fuss and bother that went with wearing his emotions on his sleeve. Now, though, he shifted that bit closer, and drew his forehead away from his aunt’s that he might lay his head on her breast, feeling how warm she was, how even her breathing was.

Bobbi’s arms tightened around him, and she drew him into his lap, kissing the side of his temple as she held him so tightly, like she would never let him go, not ever. She was a big woman, heavy with muscle and fat alike, and it was so unlike being hugged by his father, who was wiry and lean, that he felt more hot tears burn at the edge of his eyes.

“So, why didn’t you?”

It sounded cruel, to say it like that. He knew it sounded cruel, and he opened his mouth to take it back, to apologise, but Bobbi kissed the side of his temple again.

“I…” She exhaled, and he felt her breath brush through his hair. “I was a young woman, then. “In order to defeat Sin, a Summoner must travel through the five temples of Spira, to pray at the Fayth in each one, and receive an Aeon. Have you ever seen an Aeon before?” Havelock shook his head. “An Aeon is… Yevon’s natural answer to a fiend. The Fayth is made up of the spirits who give themselves up willingly, and have themselves committed to a state of dreaming, apart from the Farplane. They inhabit the statues you see in Yevonite temples. A Summoner can call upon these spirits, and make up an Aeon: a beautiful thing, a being of magick, that can follow a Summoner’s commands, and assist them in their battle. After a Summoner has sufficiently prepared themselves, they will be ready to call fourth the Final Aeon, in the holy temple in Zanarkand, right at the edge of the world.”

Her fingers were stroking his back, and he wanted to tell her to stop, but his tongue was still in his mouth. Papà had never stroked his back like that, not ever, had only held him. He fisted his fingers in her night dress, and said nothing.

“Zanarkand was the greatest of the machina cities that Sin first destroyed, one thousand years ago,” she murmured in his ear. “And there, you pilgrimage, as a Summoner… to call fourth the Final Aeon. If they succeed in doing so, they are hailed as Grand Summoner, and they bring about what we call the Calm: the period wherein Sin is defeated.”

“But it always comes back.”

“We don’t know that,” Bobbi said quietly. “The teachings of Yevon state that one day, it will be defeated forever, and won’t come back, any longer. And in the meantime, a Calm can last… Even up to six months. That’s a lot of time, isn’t it? That’s such a time when one might relax, where people might be safe in their beds. To be happy.”

“Years of Sin,” Havelock said. “Years and years and years, for just a few months.” Just a few months. It was ugly. It was horrible, ugly, but… But a few months. Just a few months of peace, away from the horror of it all, away from— Was it worth it? It must be. Or why else would people bother? He’d never known a Calm, but he would like to, he thought. He would like to, in his lifetime.

“Yes,” Bobbi murmured. Her voice sounded slightly stiff, and tight, and Havelock closed his eyes, holding more tightly at her. “But I… My guardian – you know what a guardian is, don’t you, someone who protects a Summoner? – her name was Giselle, and we…” She stopped. Havelock heard her breathing, and mercifully, she stopped rubbing his back: she hugged him, instead, and he felt himself relax. “I was injured. I couldn’t complete my Pilgrimage. So I send people, instead.”

“Aren’t you better, now?” Havelock asked. “Couldn’t you go now?”

“No. I have you, my dear boy, how could I go on a pilgrimage now?”

“I could go with you,” Havelock said. “I can fight, Aunt Roberta, I can, and I can do some basic healing magick. I’d be your guardian, and we could defeat Sin, and we could all be—"

“ _No_ ,” Bobbi snapped, and she dragged him away from her breast, looking at him desperately. Her eyes were brimming with tears, and he stared up at her, shifting uncomfortably. Her grip on his shoulders was _painful_ , it was so strong: those soft hands still had nails, and they were thick with muscle.

“Aunt,” he said. “Aunt, you’re hurting me—”

“Don’t you _ever_ ,” she said harshly, her voice hoarse, and Havelock watched the tears streak down her cheeks. “Don’t you ever, don’t you _ever_ say that again. That you’ll be a guardian, Havelock. Not ever. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” he said. “But wh—”

“ _Never_.”

“Never,” he repeated shakily, and she pulled him close again, sobbed against the top of his head as she held him. He wanted to keep talking. He had questions he wanted to ask, that he wanted answers, but the ghost of the pain lingered in his shoulders, and she was _sobbing_. Sobbing, really sobbing, clutching at him like he was the only thing left in the world.

That night, before bed, he asked, “What happened to her? Giselle?”

Bobbi looked at him, for a long, long moment, and said, “She died.”

“From…?”

“Not from Sin, no. She got sick. I couldn’t heal her.”

“Oh.”

“Go to bed, Havelock,” she said gently. She’d put new sheets on his bed for him, and gotten him a washcloth for the sweat. “Sweet dreams, this time.”

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

It was years later, that he learned. As he got older.

Summoners died.

Some of them died on their pilgrimage, beset by fiends on their travels, or killed by Sin before they were strong enough to face it. Some Summoners died while praying in the Fayth: it took a great toll on the body, to be able to bring forth an Aeon, and some bodies couldn’t take it, and collapsed from the stress. Some of them were killed by thieves, or accidents, or illnesses.

The Summoners that made it to Zanarkand died, and usually their guardians, too. They would die, when they tried to face Sin, if Sin won.

They died even if Sin lost.

He remembered learning this, at fourteen, in a temple. It was the sort of thing he had always known, in that he had always had all the attendant pieces of the jigsaw. All of the High Summoners – that is to say, Summoners who had defeated Sin – had died during the attempt. It was merely that the pieces had never formed a concrete image in his mind before.

The toll the Final Aeon took on one’s body was too great.

Even in defeating Sin, a Summoner died for their duty. This was why they were treated with such reverence: they were willing to die, just to give the world a scant six months of happiness, if that. It was shorter than that, usually. Three months. Perhaps four.

He had been so sorry, for what he’d said to his aunt, those years ago, as a child who didn’t know better. “Couldn’t you go now?” No. No, he wouldn’t ever want her to do that. Not when Sin would _come back_ , even if she defeated it, even if she won.

“Promise me,” she said sometimes, often out of the blue, when she had been quiet for a while, thinking. She often had long moments like that. “Promise me you won’t ever get involved with a Summoner.”

“I won’t,” he said that night. “I promise you, I won’t.”

Some promises tarnish with time.

  **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“I’m sorry,” Sybil said quietly, her hand touching Vetinari’s back, and he looked out over the ocean. The water was babbling about the beach, and the sound had always brought him comfort, made him think of his childhood in Boleri, all the way across the sea. He hadn’t been there since Sin had attacked, all those years ago. He had scarcely left the city of Luca, for that matter.

“Thank you,” Vetinari said quietly. “I’m just… waiting for the Summoner. He’s coming out from Djose Temple.”

It had always made him so nervous, that Bobbi had lived on the beachfront. _He_ lived in the very centre of the city, away from the coastline, and he had tried repeatedly to get her to come live further inland, further into the city, but she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t. She liked the sea, she said. It felt like home to her.

He was grateful for that, now, sitting on the stoop of her little house, looking out over the water. The Crusaders – Yevon’s military branch – protected Luca fiercely, anyway, and it hadn’t been successfully attacked by Sin in centuries, but… But still. But still.

“She was nearly seventy,” Vetinari said quietly. “I don’t suppose I ought to be quite so upset.”

“Of course you should,” Sybil murmured, leaning in close toward him, and Vetinari looked down to the modest curve of Sybil’s belly. She had been married to Vimes for… Three years, now. Three years, and yet she was pregnant, now, Sybil, _pregnant!_ Sybil, with a child. Oh, it was a wonderful thing, and he was ever so happy for her, for both of them, but he couldn’t help but think—

And Sin. What if, what if, what if…

“She was your aunt, Havelock – she was like a mother to you. Of course you should be upset.”

Sybil drew him in closer to her, and he let her pull his head onto her shoulder, her fingers curling in his hair. Her father, too, he’d been killed by Sin, but then, whose father hadn’t been, in the scheme of things? All the people of Spira might be called siblings, if parents killed by Spira were to be your shared heritage.

He realised, with a sort of cold, quiet certainty, that he’d rather built his life around his aunt. He’d never felt quite like he’d found his place, in Luca. He often thought about it, about becoming a dedicated Yevonite. All of the power in Spira was concentrated in Bevelle, the capital city, and there, it was only through the teachings of Yu Yevon that anything got done – twisted, or otherwise.

Were he a Maester, he could help people. He could _fix_ things. Were he to enter government, he could—

But.

But, but, but.

Declare himself a Yevonite? Preach the teachings of Yu Yevon? Call Sin Spira’s atonement?

How could he?

And yet, without that, what then? He worked with young Mr de Worde and his newspaper, bringing news to the people of Spira, of Luca especially, gathering information, reporting on it, and yet it wasn’t enough. There were such limits to what they might do, to hold the Maesters truly accountable, when Yevon had such a stranglehold on the world, and now, what? Was his life to be utterly without meaning? Was he to go on, doing nothing to help _anybody_?

And Sin. Sin, going on, destroying all in its path, killing countless thousands. What manner of twisted universe would give them Sin, and call it atonement?

“If there was a creator, Sybil,” Vetinari said quietly, “I believe I would kill him.”

“If anyone could,” Sybil murmured, “it would be you, dear.” He smiled, albeit wanly, and exhaled quietly. She was never shocked by anything he said, was Sybil. It was frustrating, at times, when he wanted to be shocking, but in moments like this, it was nothing but a comfort.

“Mr Vetinari,” said a quiet voice, and Vetinari turned to look at the man… So close to them, and yet he had never heard him make his way up the beach. He must have a truly silent step. He was a small man, very neat and well put-together, like he’d just stepped out of a serious painting: the trousers flowed around his boots, the sleeves flaring out at his wrists, but the tunic hugged against a compact, small body, and gave him a sense of liquid movement, even standing still. His staff was made of plain, brown wood. The robes were dark brown, too, with little hints of black. He’d never seen a Summoner in such dark colours. “You called for me, sir.”

“Yes,” Vetinari said, standing slowly to his feet. “You would be Lord Rufus?”

The Summoner’s expression didn’t change, but there was a slight shift in his eyes, and Vetinari noted the way his fingers tightened slightly on his staff. “Please,” he said quietly, “I will perform the Sending, now.”

It was brief, quiet. Sybil kissed Vetinari’s cheek before she left, told him she’d see him later, at the funeral, and left. He turned back to the Summoner, still kneeling at his aunt’s bedside, his staff laid over his knees.

“Let me give you a meal,” Vetinari said. “As thanks.”

“I require no thanks,” the young man said, not meeting Vetinari’s eye. His gaze was on the still form of Roberta Meserole, wrapped neatly in her burial shroud, to be laid to rest that evening.

“Yet you require sustenance, don’t you?” Vetinari asked.

The young man turned his head to look at him, and once more, his expression did not change. How old was he? He was old, for a new Summoner. Twenty-five, perhaps, instead of nineteen, twenty.

He bowed, then, lowly, and with quiet care. “Very well. You have my thanks.”

The young man was quiet where he sat at the table in the next room, watching Vetinari as he cooked. He had a way of sitting that was curious to Vetinari: the young man was straight-backed, and utterly still. Even his breathing wasn’t visible in the movement of his body, and Vetinari was fascinated at the incongruity of it, at the natural warmth of his plump, rounded facial features, his red cheeks, and their mask of indifference, their attendant body’s lack of expression.

“You’re older than most of the young Summoners I have met,” Vetinari said.

“I have not begun by my pilgrimage in earnest, yet,” the Summoner said softly. “I have prayed at the Fayth at Djose, but I have yet to go onto Kilika and Besaid, nor onto the temple at Macalania.”

“Why not?” Vetinari asked.

“I have no guardian,” the young man said quietly. “The cloistered brothers won’t allow me to set upon my travels without one.”

“Surely there’s no shortage of young men and women, desperate to accompany a Summoner on a futile pilgrimage to certain death,” Vetinari said, more archly than he meant to. He hesitated a moment, feeling for the right apology, but behind him, there was movement, and he turned.

The Summoner’s head was slightly bowed, and Vetinari saw the crinkle at his dark eyes, the shift of his mouth, as he hid his laugh – which was a prim, polite thing – against his palm. He turned his head, meeting Vetinari’s gaze once again, and the smile lingered on his small mouth.

“That may be so,” he said softly, in a whisper made more for the Farplane than the world they lived on, “but there is a shortage indeed of men or women who should accompany _this_ Summoner.”

“Why, what’s wrong with you?” Vetinari asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I unsettle them,” he said. “Summoners, I am told, ought be a ray of hope and sunshine. I fear that I myself am dark and serious as the grave. There is no light in me, Mr Vetinari. I merely have my duty, and the desire to perform it. That I do so without a smile on my face strikes people, bizarrely, with the certainty that I must be insincere.”

Vetinari felt himself smile. “You don’t like being called Lord Rufus.”

“Would _you_?” the young man replied, arching his eyebrows. He did have expressions, Vetinari thought. Subtle ones, muted ones… Ones that didn’t draw attention. He didn’t like attention. “No. I should suffice with being called merely Drumknott, if everyone didn’t insist upon such silly titles.”

“Drumknott,” Vetinari repeated. “Your father’s name, or your mother’s?”

“My father’s. My mother’s name, happy may she rest, was _Mallowmint_.”

“You were fond of your father?”

“No. Were you of yours?”

“Very.” The words were flying fast between them, and Vetinari found himself fascinated, even as he stirred the soup and noodles in their pot, curious at the nature of the Summoner’s fast retort, his biting reply. “He died in Boleri, nearly thirty years ago.”

“Lost to Sin, I take it?”

“Yes. Yours?”

“Murdered.”

“By you?”

Drumknott smiled. “Only in my dreams, Mr Vetinari.”

“You _are_ dark for a Summoner,” Vetinari said quietly, and hid his smile as he stirred the soup, his back to the young man. “My aunt was rather like that herself. Acerbic. Private. She didn’t like to be made a fuss of by crowds in the streets.”

“I may not finish my pilgrimage either,” Drumknott said quietly.

“You want to?”

“Of course.”

“You wish to die, merely to give the world a scant few month of peace? Peace that won’t last, that will shatter and melt away like frost on grass?”

“I can’t think of a better thing to die for.”

“Have you considered not dying at all?”

“Not for a moment.”

“My aunt always forbade me from being a guardian,” Vetinari said, taking the pot from the fire, and beginning to ladle its contents into two bowls. These two bowls were always waiting on the side, for he and Bobbi to eat from together. Two bowls, two pairs of chopsticks… Always waiting.

“Mine forbade me from being a Summoner,” Drumknott said quietly. “When my mother died. She offered to take me in, to take me to Besaid. Teach me to be a mage, so long as I wouldn’t go to the temple in Djose. She knew if I had the talent, they’d want for me to be a Summoner.”

“The cloistered brothers refused her?” Vetinari asked, setting a bowl before him, and handing him the chopsticks.

“No,” Drumknott said. “I did. My mother was drunk the day my father died. So happy, she was. This was years before Lord Braska brought about the last Calm, but she told me that that was what the Calm felt like. Sheer joy, relief, wonder, at the world, at everything… Freedom, it gave her. Freedom from fear.” He smiled, and he delicately stirred the noodles in his bowl with the chopsticks. “I would like to give everyone a joy like that.”

“I trade in information, Drumknott,” Vetinari said mildly, “and I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone so forthcoming with their life story.”

“It’s very easy to be free with such things as the details of one’s life, when one’s purpose in it is to die,” Drumknott said. Vetinari felt his breath catch in his throat, and Drumknott smiled. It was a small smile like a knife edge, curling and subtle. “I shock you,” he said, with palpable satisfaction.

“So you do,” Vetinari murmured, and they ate together in the quiet. “What will happen? If you don’t have a guardian?”

“I’ll go without,” Drumknott said.

“The cloistered brothers won’t object?”

“They will. But they wouldn’t go so far as to excommunicate me, and so long as I remain a Summoner under Yevon, I can pray at each Fayth.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“You would face the whole pilgrimage alone?”

“It is my duty, Mr Vetinari,” Drumknott said, with a shrug of delicate shoulders. “I don’t know how to explain my calling to one who lacks a calling themselves. It is a sense of… rightness, I suppose. A sort of universal justice one feels, when one is set upon the path one is made for.” It needled at him, that response. He _did_ feel a calling, but he couldn’t, he _couldn’t…_

“I don’t believe any of us were _made_ for anything,” Vetinari said quietly. Bitterness was etched in his tone.

“In the absence of a creator, we make ourselves,” Drumknott replied. “The paths linger; the destination is the same.”

“Do you believe in the teachings of Yu Yevon?”

“I believe in defeating Sin,” Drumknott said. “That is a teaching, is it not?”

“Not the priority.”

“It’s _my_ priority. That’s enough for me.”

“You’re so young,” Vetinari said quietly. It came from his mouth almost unbidden, and Drumknott smiled at him.

“Is that what you think?” he asked. He stood, then, from the table, and Vetinari watched his delicate bow, even as he formed the universal gesture of prayer with his two hands, cupping an invisible globe against his stomach. He bowed _low_. “My thanks, Mr Vetinari, for the meal. I will return to Djose now.”

“Thank you,” Vetinari said, standing. As Drumknott reached for his staff, the line of his sleeve shifted, and he saw the flash of a silver blade against his wrist, neatly held in place by a small strap. He felt himself smile. “Good luck, Drumknott.”

He nodded, and he left.

Vetinari felt curiously incomplete, with the Summoner gone away.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

In the aftermath of the funeral, they drank at a small tavern on the outskirts of the city, and Vetinari drank only a little. Margolotta had been unable to come out from Guadosalam, although she had sent a sphere[3] with a loving message in it, and bid him visit her when he could.

There had been hugging, which he had mostly been able to avoid, although Sybil had of course insisted. He was not much in the mood for company: instead, he wished to quieten himself in a few moments of quiet contemplation.

He missed having a dog, but Wuffles had died some years back, and he had not yet found it in himself to get another.

“How was the Summoner?” Sybil asked.

“He was a pleasant young man,” Vetinari lied, with a small smile catching at his lips. “He can’t begin his pilgrimage in earnest.”

“Why not?” Vimes asked.

“He has no guardian. I got the impression he’s rather off-putting to many would-be guardians – he lacks the warmth and charisma one expects from a Summoner.”

“I’d prefer that to the fake smiles and laughter,” Vimes muttered.

“Sam!” Sybil said sharply.

“I agree,” Vetinari murmured.

“Sorry, dear,” Vimes said, patting her hand, and Vetinari looked down at his own. They had scars on them, in places – from practising with weapons, and even with magick, as a boy, as a young man.

“I thought I might take it up myself,” Vetinari said quietly.

“What, warmth and charisma?” Vimes asked. “Bit beyond you.”

Vetinari laughed, and kicked him.

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The next morning, Vetinari wasn’t in his office at the Luca Times, when Vimes popped in to ask how he was doing, at Sybil’s request. It had surprised him. Vetinari was punctual, and _work-obsessed_ : he never missed it, and he hadn’t mentioned taking another day’s leave, with grief. So, he’d gone to de Worde’s office.

He’d passed over, de Worde said, anxiously and uncertainly, his holdings to William, said that he could sell Madam Roberta’s house on the seafront, but to please keep Vetinari’s own lodgings until he received word.

“Received word?” Vimes asked. “What of?”

“He went to the temple at Djose,” de Worde had said, running a hand through his hair. “He didn’t tell you? He’s going to be a guardian.”

“Just like that?” Vimes asked. “But he— His aunt always told him, she didn’t want him…”

“I tried to argue with him,” de Worde said. “But I couldn’t… Commander, I did.”

“I know, lad,” Vimes said, patting his shoulder, and feeling sickly uncertainty freeze the inside of his chest. “I know.”

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Drumknott didn’t look surprised when Vetinari entered the temple. He had a small satchel at his side, and Vetinari took it up, slinging it over his shoulder instead of Drumknott’s. Dawn was just breaking the horizon.

“I thought you might come,” Drumknott said.

“I thought you might already be gone,” Vetinari replied. “There’s a coastal village along the Mi’hen Highroad, with a boat bound for Besaid. It leaves at sundown.”

“Is this a formal offer, then?”

“You want me to make a formal offer?”

“I’m a formal sort of man.”

“I see.” Vetinari shifted on his feet, and then said, “ _Mr_ Drumknott, I would offer you my services as guardian. Do you accept?”

“I do,” Drumknott said. He reached out, and he touched the hilt of the light sword pinned to Vetinari’s hip. It was a sword he had used since he was a teenager, and Bobbi had decided he was told enough: it had been Giselle’s, when she was Bobbi’s guardian. This didn’t, of course, preclude the daggers strapped to his _own_ arms, beneath his black sleeves, but he carried it, he used it, nonetheless. “We will inform the brothers, then, and make our way on.”

Vetinari nodded, and said nothing at all.

For the first time in his life, a journey laid out before him, he was imbued with a feeling of complete and utter certainty.

And at the end of the journey waited death.

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That night, Vetinari watched Drumknott lying on the narrow bed on the boat, his breathing soft and even. He did not lie down himself, instead sitting on the stool beside him: when he did finally break, he would lie on a bed roll on the outside of Drumknott’s berth, that no one might reach the Summoner without stepping over him first.

If he was going to do this, he was going to do it _right_.

Some Summoners had been going missing, so the word went in Luca, being kidnapped, for what purposes, no one was sure. He didn’t want that happening, not at all, even though the two of them were in their own little cell on the boat. There was only one bed set into the wall, but that hardly mattered – even were there a bed on the other side of the cabin, Vetinari would sleep on the floor beside the Summoner rather than sleep so far away.

He mused, for just a moment, on the mad hypocrisy of it all, to protect a young man – twenty-seven, Drumknott informed him, he was _twenty-seven_ , although he looked a good deal younger – only to send him forth for his suicide.

“I can’t sleep with you staring quite so hard at me,” Drumknott muttered, his voice hoarse with sleep.

“I shall stare more softly, then,” Vetinari said.

“Lie _down_ ,” Drumknott muttered.

When Vetinari didn’t move, Drumknott reached out, and his hand touched Vetinari’s: it was _freezing_ cold, plump and strong, and it was a mess of scars and burns, dappled over with all manner of wound and break in the skin. Drumknott tugged at his wrist, although he didn’t open his eyes.

“Lie down,” Drumknott repeated. “Face the outside, if you want to lie guard.”

“I believe it’s stand guard.”

“Not tonight.”

Vetinari looked down at Drumknott, and then he slowly bent down, ducking into the berth beside the young man, so that the two of them were back-to-back. This changed quickly, of course: the Summoner moved in his bed, pressing his body up against Vetinari’s, and Vetinarri heard him sigh.

“Oh, you’re _warm_ ,” he mumbled, his voice blissful.

His fingers gripped loosely at Vetinari’s undershirt, which he’d stripped down to once they’d slipped into their cabin, and Vetinari felt his mouth at the small of his neck, but he didn’t kiss, didn’t do anything overtly intimate, just pressed mindlessly into the warmth of his body as a cat would.

“Glad to be of service,” Vetinari said dryly, and he felt Drumknott’s body melt against his own, felt the relaxed, easy breathing of the younger man against the back of his head. “You don’t want to ask,” he said finally, “why I offered myself as your guardian?”

“I know why,” Drumknott murmured, his voice sleepy and soft. “I was quite transparently manipulative about the whole thing, actually. I won’t mind if you leave.”

“You think I’m here merely because you imparted a sense of guilt in me?”

“That isn’t why?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Drumknott said. His voice grew more somnolent, clumsier, as the seconds dripped by. “Why, then?”

Vetinari waited. Drumknott’s breathing evened out, the sound of it quiet and even.

Vetinari closed his eyes, and let sleep take him too.

 

[1] The Al Bhed were a tribe of technologists: as the use of most machina – machines – was forbidden in the teachings of Yu Yevon, the Al Bhed were hated almost the world over. Yevon was the most dominant religion in Spira, and their teachings were considered sacrosanct almost everywhere.

[2] Al Bhed were all blond, as well, but Vincenzo Vetinari had always taken care to dye his hair black, like his son’s and his wife’s, that he draw less attention.

[3] Spheres, filled with the magick-imbued waters of the Macalania Springs, allowed one to record impressions, memories, and even messages upon them. These were one of the few pieces of machina allowed for by the teachings of Yevon.


	2. Chapter 2

It took a few days of sailing, to reach the isle of Besaid.

Initially, on the boat, there is fuss about the Summoner, but as Drumknott had told Vetinari, people find him unsettling, and Vetinari watched in undisguised fascination from his vantage point on the second deck, watching the crowd about Drumknott slowly disperse as people made their excuses, and then hurried away from him. Once the last of them had gone from him, he came away from the main part of the deck and seated himself on the edge of the ship’s deck, perching there, and Vetinari moved immediately forward.

He grabbed at the back of Drumknott’s robe, hooking his fingers into the belt of the tunic and getting a tight hold of him.

“I’m not going to fall,” Drumknott said, with more amusement in his voice than complaint.

“Not now,” Vetinari replied, and he looked out over the bright, blue ocean, the softer blue of the sky. There was white cloud staining the sky in its thick little cotton pieces, and Drumknott was a block of darkness in comparison to it. The two of them side by side, Drumknott in his muddy brown robes, and Vetinari in his black tunic, he knew they probably looked like some blot against the horizon. “What did you to say to them?”

“What do you mean?”

“They were rather quick about trying to come away from you,” Vetinari pointed out, and he leaned forward to look over the edge of the deck, but Drumknott wasn’t swinging his legs or trying to lean forward, merely had them braced against the deck walls. Even like this, balanced in his place, he was preternaturally still.

“I didn’t say anything another Summoner wouldn’t say,” Drumknott said, his face blank. “I just didn’t smile when I said it.”

“You don’t believe it’s part of your duty, then,” Vetinari said. “To smile. To spread joy.”

“I’ll spread joy when I complete my pilgrimage,” Drumknott said, with certainty. “I don’t see why I ought feign brightness and cheer all the time. I am not…” Drumknott looked down at his staff, which was laid over his knees, and held loosely in his hands, his gaze forward. “I did not become a Summoner because I considered myself charismatic or handsome. I am not well-inclined to making a loud fuss, smiling and laughing and shouting. It is not in my nature.”

“Is it in the nature of a young man to sacrifice himself on a pyre, instead?” Vetinari asked.

“I don’t believe a pyre is involved,” Drumknott replied.

Vetinari’s thin lips shifted.

There was a sort of aching emptiness in his chest that he is doing his best to avoid acknowledging, a clawing, desperate _hole_. He kept thinking of Aunt Bobbi’s home on the beachfront, entrusted to young de Worde to sell on, and of his own home, left empty. He wondered what Sybil would say, when she found out.

She would have been furious, he was aware, wouldn’t have let him go off, but—

This was a decision of impulse. He would not claim otherwise: this was an impulsive action, catching hold of one thing that had engaged him with _feeling_ , that let him feel anything but loss and grief and anger. And this young man…

 “They believe, I expect,” Vetinari said against Drumknott’s shoulder, holding just a bit tighter on the belt of his tunic as a strong wind brushed through their hair, although Drumknott didn’t teeter, “that if you are not smiling, you are upset about your purpose. If you are unsmiling, and serious, they might believe you are doing it unwillingly, or that you’re upset about doing it.”

“Funny,” Drumknott said mildly, with the ghost of a smile pulling at his lips. “I’ve met a great many Summoners, Mr Vetinari. I believe I’m the only one I’ve met who _isn’t_ upset about doing it.”

“Really?” Vetinari asked. “There is no bitterness? No grief for the life you might have led?”

“What life?” Drumknott asked. “A life without purpose?”

“You live with an astonishing clarity, young man.”

“I would say thank you,” Drumknott said softly, “but I don’t feel you mean it as a compliment.”

“Come down,” Vetinari said, although he didn’t let go of Drumknott’s belt until the Summoner was safely stood upon the deck once more. “We need to eat something.”

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That night, Drumknott wouldn’t lie down until Vetinari lay with him, and Vetinari opened his mouth, but then closed it, feeling the way the younger man pressed closer to him, his face against the crook of Vetinari’s shoulder, with Vetinari on his back. It was warm like this, he’d have to admit, particularly with the blanket thrown over them both.

How long had it been, since he’d had another man in his bed? Months… Over a year, he thought. And not for _years_ , had he had the same man in his bed two nights in a row.

“This is the true reason you wanted a guardian, I suppose,” he said lowly, and Drumknott yawned against his chest, shoving his nose against Vetinari’s nightshirt and curving his arm more tightly over his belly.

“This is how we sleep in the temple,” Drumknott murmured. “Men together, women together. Two or three to each bed. It’s nice.”

“And there I was,” Vetinari said, “hoping you were taking advantage of me.”

There was a moment’s pause, and then Drumknott leaned back slightly, his soft, rounded chin brushing against Vetinari’s chest as he looked at him from somnolently baffled eyes, visibly suppressing another yawn. “What do you mean?” he asked. He had curly hair, Vetinari noted. It was thick and a very dark brown, tending toward red when one saw it in direct sunlight, and Vetinari drew his fingers delicately through it, as he had the night previous, feeling Drumknott lean into his hand, his eyes closing shut.

“You’ve been with the cloistered brothers…?”

“Since I was eleven,” Drumknott said, leaning right into palm as Vetinari’s fingertips dragged over his scalp, lightly massaging it. His fingers loosely gripped at Vetinari’s hip on one side, at the side of his chest on the other, and like this, he wasn’t quite so cold as he had been the night previous. “Why?”

Vetinari’s lips parted, and then he pressed them together. Yevonite teaching did prohibit, he was fairly certain, sex outside marriage, and although it did not _specifically_ damn relations between men, there was a focus upon the practice only for reproductive purposes. Sex as a recreation was not to be overindulged in: hedonism, after all, was Yevon’s natural enemy.

But—

At twenty-seven, could a young man truly be so naïve?

“You aren’t worried _I’ll_ take advantage of you?” Vetinari asked, arching an eyebrow. “Sexually, I mean.”

Drumknott laughed, and relaxed, dropping forward against Vetinari’s chest. “No,” he said, stifling another small chuckle, and Vetinari wondered precisely what it was that made him find it so funny.

He hardly had time to ask.

Drumknott slept like the dead.

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Drumknott played chess, and liked it. He enjoyed word games, and he was well-read, although certain metaphors seemed to go somewhat over his head. Even the least subtle of it, evoking flowers and birds with long tongues, and the young man seemed to be quite without understanding.

The monks, he had said in a mild tone, had taught him to fight, and how to swim. He could not sing, and was specifically forbidden from joining the other cloistered brothers and sisters in song. He _could_ play several instruments.

He liked art, he said, but most of all, he liked stationery: he had a beautifully calligraphic hand, and Vetinari had listened in fascinated delight as he had taken – for some twenty-five minutes or so – great pleasure in elucidating Vetinari on the variations one could find in paper stocks from across Spira, and how one could tell where a book had been bound and printed based on its paper stock alone.

He was animated, when he spoke about stationery, full to the brim with passion, and yet it seemed Vetinari was the only recipient of such behaviour.

True, Drumknott’s expressions were muted, and for the most part, barely disturbed the serenity of his resting face even when other clues – the shift of his hands, the openness of his body language, the speed at which he spoke – betrayed his emotion, his delight or his sorrow, his fascination or his disinterest. But he _was_ different with the others.

When people came to speak with him, he was stiff and visibly uncomfortable, and Vetinari watched him amidst three excited fellows from Besaid, who had been selling fabric on the Mi’hen High Road, and who were asking him questions about Aeons. Drumknott was stiff as a board, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, and it wasn’t merely that he didn’t _smile_.

He was all but _wooden_.

He looked as if one of them was going to bite him at any moment, and true enough, his answers were polite, but they were delivered in clipped, somewhat sharp tones, as if the men had him backed into a corner, or under threat from a weapon.

“How does it feel?” one of them asked, more earnest than his fellows were, who were beginning to fall down, but even his smile was slightly forced. “To Summon an Aeon?”

“It’s magick,” Drumknott said crisply, and Vetinari watched the way his fingers tightened on the edge of his own elbow. “It feels… airy. Power that thrums in the veins, but with a stress upon one’s body, a tension.”

“It hurts?” one of them asked.

“Yes,” Drumknott said, the word heavy. There was a pause, and Vetinari saw the three men falter. They looked at one another, uncertain, and Vetinari saw Drumknott stiffen further. What must they think of him, Vetinari wondered? Hat he resented them for the pain of his pilgrimage? That he was ever in agony?

“How does it hurt?” Vetinari asked, and Drumknott turned, surprised, to look at him. So, too, did the three men. “Like a cut? A blow?”

“No,” Drumknott said, shaking his head. His body language relaxed, just slightly, and he said, “like… the way one’s muscles ache, after a long run, or a strong swim. A dull pain, ringing, but satisfying, in its own way. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, exactly, but it’s the pain of good work well done.”

Vetinari watches the young men relax, and this time they move away with smiles on their faces, and Drumknott looks after them, his brow furrowing somewhat, before he looks back to Vetinari.

“Was I being unkind?”

“No,” Vetinari said. “Merely stiff. You don’t like attention, do you?”

“I’m not good at it,” Drumknott muttered. “I know I’m not. They find me disappointing.”

“They find you standoffish, and cold,” Vetinari corrected. “They think _you_ dislike _them_.”

Drumknott’s face was unchanging, and yet, in the past few days, Vetinari had become more familiar with its ways, its little revelations. Drumknott’s frozen expression communicated all Vetinari needed to know.

“I _don’t_ ,” he said, sounding more sad than affronted. “I don’t dislike them.”

Vetinari exhaled. “I know.”

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“You enjoyed life in the temple?” Vetinari asked. Besaid was in sight now, the island a spot upon the horizon in the distance, and Drumknott was silent for a few moments, looking down at his own hands where they rested on the deck’s side. “They were… kind to you?”

“Yes,” Drumknott said. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

Vetinari shrugged his shoulders. He was good at understanding people. He always had been, and Drumknott’s issues seemed more complicated to reach for, to comprehend, than most, but he did not mind. It was interesting, exciting, to meet those who were more… _complex_. Not as puzzles, never as puzzles – he despised the treatment of people as puzzles – but merely because one drew closer in one’s attempts to comfort, to charm, to _connect_.

“You slept alongside the brothers and sisters, shared meals with them, grew up alongside them… You went to other temples, I expect, and to Bevelle?”

“Before I was a Summoner,” Drumknott said lowly. “I was always amongst but apart from the priests, even then. As a mage. But I was usually with others of the cloistered brothers. They didn’t like for me to go without an escort.”

“Because you were too cold,” Vetinari supplied. “Uncharismatic. Inappropriate to allow to speak with others, in case you lowered the public opinion of Summoners, and of Yevon. This was what they told you.” It was a rather ugly thing to say, he thought. It was uglier, to think of cloistered brothers – and their Maester, no doubt – saying it to a young man who had never been outside the shelter of the temple. Drumknott stiffened just at Vetinari saying it. He must have heard such things every day.

“Yes,” Drumknott said, after a small, tense pause.

“You’ve not struck me as especially so,” Vetinari murmured. “You seem rather frightened of people, if anything.”

“I’m not frightened of them,” Drumknott muttered. “What _rot_.”

Besaid was directly ahead of them, now. Within ten or so minutes, they’d be boarding the island from the decking, and going on to the Besaid Temple… And after that, there was a boat to Kilika tomorrow morning. They’d stay at the temple, Vetinari supposed, if there was no inn here on the small island, but there likely would be, if there was a temple here.

He turned away from Drumknott, and moved toward the captain’s cabin, knocking on the door and politely speaking with the man’s second. There was no inn, because the temple sufficed – very well.

“Would you walk down with us?” the man asked, with a sort of polite urgency. “There are fiends along the road down to the village, and last time, there was a little bother.”

“Of course,” Vetinari said smoothly. “The Lord Summoner and I will—”

He trailed off. He had leaned away from the door but for a moment to look for Drumknott, against the deck’s edge, and now, the blot of brown mage was nowhere in sight. He glanced back and forth up the deck, not seeing him, and then he felt his heart drop from its proper place in his chest as he sprinted across the deck, looking over the side of the ship.

He scanned the smooth surface of the water quickly, methodically, and just before he made to turn away, to search the rest of the deck, the young man surfaced. He swam _fast_ , and he had shoved his tunic into his satchel, letting him swim without a shirt.

“There are _fiends_ in the water,” Vetinari called.

Drumknott didn’t even turn back: he laughed at him, and dived beneath the surface again.

“Is he alright?” asked one of the young men from earlier, and Vetinari shoved his own knapsack into the young man’s arms, stripping off his tunic.

“He won’t be once I get hold of him,” Vetinari muttered, and dived over the edge.

Drumknott swam fast, but not quite so fast as Vetinari himself, and Vetinari moved as quickly as he could through the warm water, chasing after the Summoner. He swam well, likely having swam in the Moonflow or the ocean on one side or the other, but Vetinari felt his skin hot and tight as some monstrous thing swam up from the depths toward the young man, its maw gaping open and showing a series of teeth.

Drumknott didn’t even reach for the staff on his back. He struck out with his short blades, and Vetinari watched the thing lost its consistency in the water, fading into a mass of pyreflies that dissipated into the ocean around them. He was _fast_ , even like this, beneath the surface, and, Vetinari was rather surprised to note, quite deadly.

Once he was level with the young man, they swam further inland, coming up toward the beach, and they fought off the fiends together, but it was plain Drumknott didn’t _need_ his assistance. His body, compact but plump, with evident muscle rippling beneath the comfortable, curving fat, moved as if the water scarcely held him back at all, and he was plainly as comfortable with his daggers as he was his staff.

As they came toward the beach, some bigger fiend lurched out to meet them, and Vetinari watched Drumknott’s face shift, watched his _laugh_ under the water as he passed one of his daggers to his right hand. He spread out the fingers of his left, and Vetinari watched the way the spell – Thundaga, or Thundara – rippled through the water, the hot, white crackle of it on the fiend’s scaled flesh, the _sizzle_ of it, even down here in the water.

It faded into pyreflies, and uncaring, Drumknott swam directly through.

Vetinari swam after him, his lips curved in an inescapable smile. The man was… But that was neither here nor there. Vetinari had, for a moment, _panicked_ , and he didn’t care for that feeling at all. The water still felt like it was rushing in his ears.

Drumknott walked out onto the beach, and Vetinari watched the way his trousers, soaked with water, clung tight to his arse and his thighs, his boots squelching as he came onto the sand. There were scars on his back. Vetinari had seen their shine in the water, but out here, in the sun, they were very obvious indeed: the long, hard scarring that came from being belted, and there were other scars, too… Burns, blows, cuts. Splits in the skin.

He wouldn’t have gotten _that_ from the temple.

He was quick about dragging his tunic out from his satchel, and Vetinari watched him draw the sodden thing – although not quite as sodden as he had expected – from inside, pulling it on over his shoulders. He didn’t yet belt it, turning to look at Vetinari.

“I—”

Vetinari lunged, and he knocked the young man back onto the sands, letting him land hard beneath him. Vetinari straddled his waist, shoving his daggers aside and pressing his own directly against Drumknott’s neck, putting pressure on his windpipe. He saw the Summoner’s eyes widen, saw him lean back, his lips parting.

“Don’t you _ever_ ,” he whispered, “do that again.”

Drumknott swallowed, and the movement of his throat made Giselle’s blade shift, just slightly. “I wanted—”

“I know what you wanted,” Vetinari interrupted, and leaned in closer, that they were nose to nose, Drumknott pinned beneath him. Drumknott was stiff and trembling, just slightly, his lips shifting before he dared make a noise, and Vetinari said softly, “Don’t. _Ever_.”

“Yes, sir,” Drumknott said breathlessly. His cheeks were glowing red, his eyes wide as saucers, and Vetinari saw the slight twitch of his hands, as if he wanted to reach up and touch.

Vetinari stood up from him, walking up the beach and toward the pier. It was a warm, sunny day, and he was aware of the summery shine against his skin as he clipped his sword back to his waist, coming up onto the decking of the pier. It took a few moments before Drumknott rushed to follow after him, his boots now held in his hand, his feet bare on the sand, and Vetinari didn’t miss the way he leaned forward, eager to catch Vetinari’s gaze.

“I just wanted to cool off,” Drumknott said. “I was in no danger—”

“You don’t go off without me. You do not _dive from boats_ without me. I am your guardian: I know where you are at all times, or you go nowhere. Are we understood?”

“But I don’t _need_ to—”

“I don’t believe I asked for your opinion,” Vetinari said smoothly, turning to look at him. “I asked if you understood mine.”

Drumknott was staring up at him with wonder subtly writ in his features, his cheeks red enough to light fires with. “You can’t speak to me like this,” he said, sounding about as far from genuinely insulted as a young man could get. If anything, his tone was elated. “I’m the _Summoner_.”

“Are you?” Vetinari asked dryly. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Drumknott looked up at him as if he were made of starlight.

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On land, Drumknott fought still with his blades over his staff, and informed Vetinari he didn’t like to use his magic overmuch, that it made him tire more quickly, and that he preferred to keep his energy up in that regard for healing, more than for striking out with offensive spells.

He liked to fight.

He was quick on his feet, and Vetinari could see the satisfaction as he cut down one fiend after another, dancing about on easy, fleet feet, taking down one fiend and then the next.

“He’s not like Lady Yuna,” said one of the men from the boat, in a sort of quiet, awed way.  Lady Yuna, Vetinari had been informed, was a Summoner who had grown up here on Besaid, and had recently made her way to Kilika and onward on her own pilgrimage, with a veritable team of guardians in tow. “I didn’t know Summoners could be warriors.”

When they came down to the entrance of the village, Drumknott’s robes were quite dry, and they fell into step together, walking directly toward the temple, which was at the very centre of the village, around which all the rest was built. Vetinari had seen the temple in Djose, which was full to the brim with magick and crackled on the air: the Mushroom Rock expanded when a Summoner was praying in the Fayth, but Besaid was a simpler temple.

He was not a Yevonite, but he had stepped into the main hall of Djose before, and yet never had he stepped beyond, into the Cloister of Trials – a sort of maze-like path that led down to the Fayth in the temple, designed to focus the Summoner before they reached the Hall of the Fayth.

“Good morning,” Drumknott said, bowing deeply to the priest who came to meet him, and Vetinari waited behind him. “My name is Lord Rufus, and this is my guardian, Havelock Vetinari.”

“Lord Rufus,” said the priest, bowing in reply. “You must be tired, after your journey. Would you care to rest?”

“Please,” Drumknott said, “I should like to proceed directly into the Cloister of Trials, if I may.”

“Of course, Lord Summoner,” he said, and Drumknott lead the way, walking up the stairs and ducking beneath the curtain.

Vetinari had never held much for the Yevonite precepts, and did not care for Yevon’s particular laws and concerns, but he could not shake the feeling of doing something forbidden, something unthinkable, as he followed Drumknott through and into the hall of the temple so sacred only Summoners and certain of the cloistered brothers and sisters could step within.

“You aren’t tired?” Vetinari asked, arching his eyebrow.

“Are you?” Drumknott asked, turning his head, and for the first moment, Vetinari saw a scant piece of hesitation in his eyes, of uncertainty. “Oh. My apologies, we need not go on immediately, we can—”

Vetinari held up his hand, and Drumknott’s gaze landed on it, his lips coming to a stop. “Merely checking in.”

“Oh,” Drumknott said.

“This is my duty, as guardian. To ensure you are safe and well: that you are not overtaxing yourself.”

“Oh,” Drumknott said. He looked down at Vetinari’s feet, for just a moment, before he glanced back up to meet his gaze. “My thanks.”

“Off you go, then,” Vetinari said, and followed where the younger man walked.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

The Cloister of Trials was complicated. It involved the manipulation of glyphs and channels of magic, a sort of maze requiring knowledge of puzzles – it made sense, Vetinari mused as he watched Drumknott approach the process, never asking for assistance, that the young man had been tutored in puzzles and the like.

It was different, when they entered the Hall of the Fayth.

One could hear them singing, here.

The Fayth had a curious song. One heard it at times in the temple: slow and even and melodic, it passed directly through one, seemed to reverberate within one’s very bones, and Vetinari felt the strange ethereality of it, the way every note lingered thick upon the air.

Each statue in the Fayth, Vetinari was aware, contained the soul of a person, willingly interred – whilst they were still alive – that they might form a channel for the Summoner, that they might commune, and later form an aeon. He could not enter the Fayth proper – even guardians were forbidden to enter that space, wherein only Summoners could tread – but the very idea of it, of these ghosts trapped in their stone bindings, just beyond that curtain—

Yevon was a religion founded upon death, and suffering, and strange, eldritch pain.

Was this not so?

“I don’t know how long I’ll be,” Drumknott said.

“I will wait,” Vetinari replied.

Drumknott bowed his head, and slipped into the Fayth.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Hours passed, one by one. Three hours. Four.

Vetinari would be still for long minutes at a time, and then he would pace for a while. The song seeped into his blood, his skin, his hair, and he closed his eyes, tipping his head back against the cool, cool stone. He wondered, continuously, what it must be like. Did he simply kneel, praying?

No sound came from the Fayth, so he did not speak, and yet, did he communicate with them, these souls of the Fayth? Was there some manner of interview, some further challenge apart from the maze that lead here? Was there some debate, some philosophy, some ethical test of his worthiness?

Vetinari knew not.

He had never given all that much thought to Summoners and their lifestyles, but as the hours passed… They wouldn’t harm him, Vetinari thought. Surely, there would be no harm, and yet, was stress harm? In the end of it all, the Final Summoning would take from the Summoner their life – could this happen, without warning, even now? During prayer?

He counted down to the fifth hour, and then he stood to his feet, but it was here that the curtain shifted, and Drumknott exited the Fayth in a slight daze, at the very top of the steps. Vetinari moved forward, watching him step clumsily down them: his eyes were defocused, his lips parted, and he swayed slightly as he came to the lowest step.

“Drumknott?” Vetinari asked, his voice low.

Drumknott turned his head as if hearing something he could not trust was real, as if he were in a dream, and he looked straight through Vetinari before his knees buckled. Vetinari swept his arms beneath the younger man as he fell, drawing him up, and Drumknott was limp in his arms as Vetinari moved swiftly from the dark, draughty hall, back through the maze and up the stairs.

“Brother,” Vetinari said, and the priest dashed to lead him into an anteroom, but Vetinari noted there was no surprise in his face, no shock. Drumknott was slightly cold, although not dangerously so, and Vetinari laid him down on the low bed that had been set aside – two beds, Vetinari noticed, in a plain room. Quarters for the visiting Summoner and his guardian. He brushed his fingers against Drumknott’s brow, feeling his temperature, and then he laid his fingers against the younger man’s neck, feeling his pulse.

Slow, but even.

“He will wake in a few hours,” said the cloistered brother, and Vetinari turned to look at him, taking him in. “The Fayth teach the Summoners new magick – it is taxing, to the mind, and to the body. The fatigue will pass. How many temples has he been to, so far?”

“This is his second,” Vetinari said quietly, brushing Drumknott’s hair back from his face. Unconscious, his expression was relaxed and peaceful, and he did not stir as his hiead lolled slightly to the side. “He hails from the Djose temple, but I believe he prayed in the Fayth there some time previous.”

“If he’s taken a break from his pilgrimage, it will have been more of a shock to his body,” the brother supplied, and then he smiled at Vetinari. “He will be well, sir. Your devotion becomes you.”

“It’s merely my duty, as his guardian,” Vetinari said quietly. “I could be nothing less.”

Standing, he took up a blanket folded on a shelf, unfolding it and laying it over him, and then he looked back to the priest. “I left our bags in the Hall of the Fayth,” he said. “His satchel and mine, I ought—”

“Please, sir,” the brother said. “Rest. I’ll have someone collect your things, and I’ll bring you some water.”

“Thank you,” Vetinari said, although he felt a sense of— Not quite loss, precisely, but some vague frustration, at a task being removed from his path: he felt not in the least tired, now, but he sat back down, regardless, on the edge of Drumknott’s bed, leaning back against the wall. He looked— so young.

 _Not ever_ , Bobbi had said. _Don’t you ever_.

And yet she had been a Summoner, had she not? She had taken a guardian, had she not?

He had made his pledge, now. He had… a _destination_. A journey.

And at the end of it all—

Well.

That was some ways off.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“Don’t disturb him,” Vetinari heard, at the edge of his perception, echoing softly through the dark, dreamy sense of sleep that still enveloped him. He was warm, he was aware, and lying on a soft bed, his head heavy amidst pillows. “He’s tired.”

“But my lord summoner,” replied another voice, “to go and show the people—”

“I will wait,” said the first voice – Drumknott’s voice, Drumknott. Vetinari’s mind, half in dream and half in reality, conjured him in a swathe of mist, his hands spread, his robes shifting as if caught by some invisible breeze. “Until he wakes of his own accord.”

“Very well,” said the priest, and Vetinari felt the darkness thicken.

 **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

He woke properly an hour later, to Drumknott sitting on the bed beside him, a book in his lap. He glanced at the window, noting the peach-stained colour of the sky, the sun still over the horizon. It was early evening: he couldn’t have slept, all in all, for more than two hours.

“Thank you,” Drumknott said quietly: he didn’t look up from his book. Vetinari felt the warmth of his lower back against his calves, leaning back against Vetinari’s legs where he lay on the bed, and Vetinari, for a moment, was quiet.

“Are you well?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“It took?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Good.”

Drumknott looked at him, and he smiled, in a soft, gentle fashion. He looked well, now, healthy. “Yes,” he agreed. “Good.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). You can send requests [on Tumblr](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask), too. Requests always open.
> 
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